BY ROSE MARIE QUINTOS
Séverine is an internationally valued speaker and advisor, SaaS growth strategist, management consultant, mental health practitioner, and the co-author of a new book on something we are all in need of these trying days: personal resilience; that is, how we can promote our physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual well-being. She is frequently asked to lecture on these topics and to aid people from all walks of life to balance their careers, businesses, and family commitments.
Despite her busy life, she has also found time to volunteer as a board member for the European Holiday Home Association since its beginnings, to facilitate its growth. And she is an active participant in international initiatives to rejuvenate the travel and tourism sector as we look to normalize from the COVID-19 world crisis. A part of that rejuvenation is equipping folks with tools like her new book.
The book, Personal Resilience: Survival Strategies for Pandemic Times is a compilation of strategies, lessons, and hard work from Séverine and her co-author, Dr. Peter Tarlow, a rabbi, tourism security expert, and philosopher-at-large. In this interview, Séverine shared how they met and what inspired them to write Personal Resilience.
Inspirations for the book
Peter and Séverine met at a virtual, online “regenerating tourism event” just a few months before they wrote their book. She had been working and consulting with travel and tourism clients, as Peter had been, and they crossed paths. This serendipitous encounter renewed her writing impulses.
“I’m really interested . . . in personal development, in books, in writing,” Séverine began. “What brought us together . . . [was] the spiritual aspect — because he’s a rabbi — and because . . . we increase [our personal] performance . . . when we work with the people we love, when we’re well in terms of organization . . . [and when] we’re able to . . . delegate . . . in a way that . . . leverage[s] everyone’s skillsets.”
“Connecting with this, what is resilience?” she posed as she held up a copy of Personal Resilience, with the yellow flower on its cover.
“Resilience is that, in order to achieve, we need first to survive, as you can see here: The flower emerging from the cracks. How can a flower be born from this?”
Séverine’s face lit up as she added, “It’s regeneration. It’s the ability of regeneration to actually look after yourself . . . to fulfill ourselves . . . develop ourselves . . . [so we] can give to others!”
To say that COVID-19 has been a trauma for most people is a gross understatement, she went on. It has hurt economies worldwide, it has driven many businesses to failure, and it has killed millions. It has been tragic, but it has also helped people to stop, or slow down, and to spend time at home and take a break — to regenerate. “So,” she reflected, “I think, personal resilience is the key . . . to be a survivor. You need to stop . . . like a seed that first needs to lie [in the soil] in order to grow . . . in good times, and pandemic times as well.”
According to Séverine, “the Personal Resilience book . . . gives very practical guidelines for how to stop, and how to think and plan ahead. Unfortunately, we have to be hit by a pandemic to take time to stop, take a break, and think mindfully.“
Her thoughts as a parent
On the question of why she would suggest the Personal Resilience book to parents, Séverine pointed out the extra pressures that parents put on themselves, and that the book offers many coping strategies that are particularly relevant to parenthood. She listed a few examples of parenting situations that the book can help with.
“It’s all true that we want to give our best and everything to our children. But it is also good to remember that if we put pressure on ourselves . . . to be a certain way, by default we are going to pass it on to others . . . and it will not be positive.
“When we feel pressured, when we worry, it’s really difficult to not actually let it out at home, even with children. If you’re in a relationship and you can’t get out [of the house] as during a pandemic, people split up because things like pandemics have a way of forcing the realization that maybe you’re not living with the right person.
“So, I think this book helps everyone reflect in practical terms that you should focus on yourself, your well-being, your emotions, on meditating and on saving a space — your safe space — and focus on leading by example, even with the children. And that’s one skill set for parenting.
The importance of health, spirituality, personal relations, and finances
While all four aspects of the human condition — health, spirituality, social interactions, and financial well-being — are important, Séverine highlighted one area when asked which of the four is most important to her.
“All four need attention,” she responded, “but, for [her], health is the most important.” She explained why she thinks so.
“I’m lucky that I’m healthy because I have no diseases . . . . But others may not be healthy. And why are they not healthy? Probably because they’re not healthy in their minds.
“When I talk about health I also talk about mental health. The two are really connected, and a lot of physical illnesses are due to people suffering from depression, from issues. And there are times when traumatized people then traumatize others. It’s just the way it is. We see that in families. People that grew up in violent families are more likely to be violent with their children. It’s not because they want to be that way.” She pointed to her own head and emphasized, “It’s here, in the mindset.”
“So how do we right that? That’s the work that I do as a qualified trauma therapist, I do trauma management. As a mental health practitioner, I can help people work on that.
“It’s also about guiding people to an activity they can actually handle. If it can be done, then it’s in the person to work toward it. The way some people have dealt positively with ‘lockdowns,’ and what others have created during disastrous situations, is just amazing. It’s really about the mindset and physical health—the two are connected. And then there’s food: what you drink, what you eat. We talk about that in the Personal Resilience book.”
“The one bit of advice I’d want to share is this:
“Know your priorities. Do something that you know is good and healthy for you. And be mindful of these.”
On her previous bestseller and Personal Resilience
Séverine is no stranger to good writing. Her first book, Mindful Time Management, achieved “Amazon Best Seller” status early last year. Prompted to compare the two books, she had some observations to share.
“[Mindful Time Management] is a completely different type of book, I would say Mindful is very much meant for executives. For example, it’s focused on the corporate environment, and its audience is intended to be people who are board members and executives. On the other hand, Personal Resilience is inclusive; it’s for everyone.
“Actually, I realized after writing Mindful that it is not as inclusive as it could be. I mean that leadership happens outside corporate walls too. I wrote in Mindful that a person can be, and ought to be, a leader at home and in his or her community, not just in the corporation. But I didn’t emphasize that enough in Mindful. So, I would say Personal Resilience is more likely to be a bestseller because it’s for everyone, regardless of where you are from. And it’s very practical.
“Personal Resilience is for easy, general reading. The book itself is a victory of sorts because it shows what can be achieved by people with different points of view — and cooperate rather than fight. It’s very inclusive even from that perspective. I’m a woman and Dr. Tarlow is a man, and we have two very different sets of notions and mindsets about survival, socially acceptable behaviors, health, mentality, spirituality — just about everything. So, that alone makes this book a best-seller, just because it actually happened, and it turned out so well.”
As we closed our interview, it occurred to me that her determination and cooperative spirit came through in person as they do in the words she and her co-author penned about personal resilience.
Connect with Author Severine Obertelli:
Website: severineobertelli.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/severineobertelli
Email: severineobertelli@gmail.com
Twitter: @MaxxtonGroup, @severinebella
Rose Marie Quintos is a Publishing Assistant and the Marketing Director for Quest Publishing,
a division of the Inquesta Corporation. (She can be reached at rquintos@inquesta.com.)
